The afterlife (also referred to as life after death or the world to come or reincarnation) is an existence in which, some believe, the essential part of an individual’s identity, or their stream of consciousness, continues to have after the death of their physical body.
Humanists look towards scientific methods as they ponder on how the universe works, and they discard the idea of the supernatural. They don’t believe in an afterlife and as a result, feel that people should endeavour to find happiness in this life and help others do the same.
Although the Bible is clear about those who bear good fruits, whose deeds are righteous and are born again will live with the Creator in glory in heaven after death and judgement day, hell is said to also exist.
The people who fail to follow the commandments of God on earth, the Bible emphasises, will be thrown in a ‘lake of fire’ (hell). Some people still fear the popular view of hell. Others wonder how a loving God can torment people eternally for their misdeeds in this life. Some people share their views on the afterlife:
Adrian Innocent, a Christian with Manifest Fellowship Rwanda, notes that death in its originality means separation. "For example, Adam and Eve ate fruit from the forbidden tree and the punishment was for them to die. But we don’t see them die physically. Because they lived so many years physically even after their expulsion from the garden.
"However, they were separated from His presence (figuratively, a garden means presence). They were dead to God,” he says.
Innocent further says that interestingly, God’s voice could still speak to them but they had been separated from His presence. They were dead to God in as much as God spoke to their souls after the separation. To fully grasp what death really is, you have to see it through the eyes of the Creator.
"And also understand who man is. Man is spirit with a soul in a body. The highest limitation to life of the body or flesh is death or separation from the physical world.
"But after death, there is no limitation of a resurrected man. That’s why walls could not limit a resurrected Jesus. He just passed through them and appeared everywhere, went against gravity into heaven,” he says.
Innocent also says that life after death here is just a continuation of the soulish life here on earth. The soul being your organ or function of will, emotions and thoughts. Your soul does not need oxygen to live but your body does survive on oxygen. Spirits don’t need oxygen to live.
"So when oxygen is gone, the soul and spirit continue, the only thing separated from them is the body. So the life in the body is a result of our will, mind and emotional acts that men are judged before God,” he says. To be alive in the body is to be absent to the spirit, he adds.
Hakym Reagan, a Muslim based in Kigali, believes in life after death. Believing in an afterlife is one of the six articles of faith in Islam, he says. The deceased are in an intermediary state, until the great resurrection. At the time of resurrection, it will be revealed whether they go to heaven or hell.
He says, many of us do not realise that death is a journey. Depending on different people’s beliefs, that journey can be perceived in many different ways, one of them being that intermediate state which can also be considered as life after death.